March 20, 2008: Cancelled operations at The University Hospital Of North Staffordshire have reached their highest levels for a year. Latest figures show 114 patients had their surgery shelved in January. More than half of the postponements were caused by a lack of high-dependency beds for patients to be transferred to after leaving the theatres.

April 28, 2008: Seriously-ill patients are still being dumped for hours in cold, cramped and overcrowded hospital corridors, seven months after work was carried out to improve an emergency department. Health officials initially put the problem down to "teething difficulties" after the creation of a new adult assessment unit at The University Hospital Of North Staffordshire. Now councillors have acted on a stream of complaints from the public to demand an end to what has been called the chaos in the emergency department.

October 29, 2008: Experts have been brought in to solve a delayed discharge crisis which sees recovered patients blocking dozens of hospital beds. Bed-blocking at The University Hospital Of North Staffordshire was the worst in the country in 2007/08, with 7.84 per cent of beds blocked. But that had increased to 9.27 per cent of beds in August and means the equivalent of four wards are blocked by recovered patients at the 1,100-bed complex. Now, 14 "discharge chasers" have been recruited to draw up a plan for every patient admitted to the hospital.

December 11, 2008: A top health official has quit her job six months after offering to resign if there was no end to marathon delays in her hospital's emergency department. Val Doyle departed as chief operating officer at The University Hospital Of North Staffordshire after 11 months in the job. Her resignation comes after queues grew even longer in the accident unit. The delays brought increasingly biting criticism from members of the public.

December 11, 2008 Five wards at Staffordshire's main hospital were today closed because of an outbreak of a stomach bug. The blow robs The University Hospital Of North Staffordshire of around 100 beds at a time when it is already struggling to find room for seriously ill patients queuing at its emergency department.